continued. over 1,000 homicides this year. what is our strategic partnership? described to me the situation and what we're doing in conjunction with the government and the governor and his office to tackle this one appears to be -- first of all, the increase in the homicide rate and violence is directly linked the increases to drug-related violence? secondly what is the comprehensive approach to that? are we re-examining that situation? this is a domestic obligation. not a country. this is under our jurisdiction and these are american citizens. what is our plan? how is that developing? are looking at new things we can do? ..

>> we see organizations bringing in larger loads of cocaine and heroin into puerto rico. some of that is for domestic consumption there, and then -- >> houses of a domestic problem? >> consumption, is similar a significant. that as a country i think needs to address, but then also we see

a lot of the cocaine and heroin and moving into the united states of the agency board. >> their consumption problem is comparable to other major u.s. cities, to what i would see in miami? >> i don't have a consumption statistic, but consumption is occurring and there is street-level distribution in the projects and there is a lot of violence. >> cocaine committed to miami where i live. it's just repeated at the street level, organizations that sell to people there. it's kind of the same process that we are seeing in san juan, for example. in addition it's a transit point, correct? >> yes. we see cocaine and heroin leaving puerto rico and he moved into united states into south florida all the way of eastern seaboard into new york and other cities. >> what they face in puerto rico today is similar to what we saw in south florida index 80s, what's the route that usually services from puerto rico, the

route towards the eastern seaboard? >> primarily. primarily we see those loads of cocaine and heroin moving up into south florida. so it is, it does serve as a transit area are transient the point but also local distribution as well. >> is there a resource from an puerto rico? does their law enforcement agency have problems do with the complexity of this? i thought i read somewhere there were submarines activity, is that correct? >> we have seen the trafficking organization ship. we've seen them use air. with address that threat. we see boat activity. we have seen as well innovative approaches such as semi submersible submarines. >> they are not using jacksonville, florida. so there are other places, nor do i want to but my point is they are not using these places for a reason. is there some specific vulnerability in puerto rico's capabilities that they're exploiting?

isn't a resource problem that needs to be addressed? do they just don't have the resources to deal with these? >> i could get back with you with a number, they are stepping, our staffing has been constant over the last of your so that hasn't really been -- we kept our full-color that of resources throughout the caribbean. >> the last point i may, if you're talking about jacksonville, the activity were happening in jacksonville, people would be screaming about it right now. i just want to make sure, from a congressional perspective ripping just as much attention to it. puerto rico is a domestic responsibility of ours. it's not another country. i want to make sure that we are giving it the attention it deserves both resource wise and publicly. i look forward to exploring with your office what we can do on our end to ensure that we are providing them the resources

they need to address this problem. thank you. >> thank you, senator rubio. i have another round of questions here. i am acutely concerned within the context of the caribbean, on the dominican republic, and i would like to ask mr. benson help us out here in understand what's happening. i am deeply concerned about the substantial increase in narcotics, as well as the president, presence of international crime syndicates reportedly including mexican and colombian cartels as well as mafia affiliated entities, venezuela, russia and albania in the last few exhibit reports from france and puerto rico dr. ping significant finds of narcotics coming from the dr. can you comment for the committee on the growth and the narcotics trend how it is entering and leaving the country, what effect does corruption have on our ability to address this growing problem?

and so let's start there. just give me an oversight on the dominican republic. >> senator, the dominican republic is one of, as will look at it from a targeting point of view, plays a major role as a transshipment point for those drug trafficking organizations. we see loads of cocaine and heroin moving up into the dominican republic. we saw utilization of aircraft. we see go fast boat activity bring loads of cocaine. we see containerized cargo moving up into the dr. it's still probably the most significant transit point for criminal organizations, take those loads of cocaine, and then we see it move from that point to the united states. we see also significant loads of

cocaine lead the dominican republic and also then move to europe as well. so it is a critical spot for us to work with our counterparts in the dominican republic from a targeting strategy point of view. we do that every day. there is issues of corruption in the dominican republic, and then there's also great partnerships and counterparts that we work with every day to get the job done. our targeting strategy there is effective. one thing we are trying to do is build throughout the caribbean and additional information, and intelligence exchange with all other nations there there in the caribbean to build that more robust targeting approach. and that's how we see us going

forward in the future from dea, looking at the dominican republic, haiti as well, and with the overall goal of dismantling the criminal organization. >> let me ask you, it seems to me that part of our, when you and i talked, you mentioned i think in response in part to senator rubio's previous question, you talked about submersibles. could you expand on that question seems to be a relatively new but growing mechanism that they are using to try to ship drugs to the united states. >> we clearly see drug trafficking organizations changing their tactics in response to the successful operations that we have. so they have, over the period of the last few years, have begun to utilize semi submersible submarines, fully submersible submarines as well.

to transport larger quantities of cocaine. being constructed in south america, and then being utilized to move narcotics up into central america and mexico. >> now, one of our challenges, i read just a few days ago, statements of one of the presidential candidates in the dominican republic, his words, not mine, we are at risk of converting ourselves into a narco state. and then he goes on to cite a series? which are pretty alarming, maybe ambassador granted, you can help us with this as well as mr. benson. he cites the cases of forming -- a former army captain who operate within the military structure recalling that the navy had guided and transported

drug shipments instead of protecting the marine frontier. he also spoke about someone, and maybe mr. benson, you could help us with this as well as ambassador brownfield, josé a gusto having an id card from dna which is dominica national intelligence, and was supposedly guarded by police colonels as well as as well as having official license plates, those are just some of the series of examples that have existed. could you talk about those individuals and/or challenges? >> there's clearly as you know corruption, but we are, our approaches is to work with those members of the dominican police forces, that we have a history of working with.

and as you know, we do have a very robust sensitive and castigating -- investigation unit that has achieved many operational successes. so as we look from a targeting and intelligence sharing point of view, we are always cognizant that corruption does existed there as well as other places, but we approach it in a way where we still are able to put very significant operations and cases together to achieve those results that we need to achieve. >> i appreciate that the dea is working as best he can in this environment with embedded entities and units or individuals. my question, however, is to try to get to a broader understanding. made ambassador brownfield, you can help us with this.

because at the end of the day do you know who josé agusto is? >> mr. chairman, i'm not going to offer any specific you on a specific case. i for the name but in my case i've heard it mostly through media reporting, but i do not question in any way what you have just read. i do say, you asked earlier about a policy. let me give you a sense of the four core elements of our counter-narcotics approach and policy. >> with all due respect to come we sort of covered that ground before. i want to get specifically to what is happening in the dominican republic. do you know -- if you don't you don't. josé agusto? >> i do not, know. i don't know him. [talking over each other] >> you know of his case? is it fair to say, mr. benson, that he has ties, clearly, isn't he under our arrest? >> what i know about him is he

was a drug trafficker reduce ultimately arrested back in july of 2010 in puerto rico and is awaiting trial. it and did not act within the dominican republic before he was caught in puerto rico? >> he was in the dominican republic as a trafficker, and there were attempts to apprehend him, and then ultimately he was arrested in puerto rico spent let me ask you, ambassador brownfield argument with the fact that we have canceled a series of visas, persons from the dominican republic, and as well as officials from the dominican republic because of issues of corruption, narcotrafficking? >> yes. i mean, most of them would've been canceled as a result of decisions made within the inl's crime office in terms of the corruption provision in the statute.

>> and do you know that specifically in the context of the dominican republic that we have, in fact, canceled a series of visas because of those concerns? >> yes. >> because i know that there is an article where the ambassador, united states ambassador in the dominican republic, talks about a series of visas that have been canceled. so my concern is, is that, we can make all the efforts we want. using the dominican republic by way of example but it sounds like in the case of dea's challenge, which is enormous as it is, you have to work around and in some cases these governmental entities, where some of the highest levels of the government seem to be corrupted by the drug traffickers. and that is a huge challenge. is that fair to say? >> it is very pressure it is very fair to say. what we're trying to do. >> mr. benson, let me ask you, using again the dominican republic by way of example, a

lot of, it's a major shipping, normal shipping port. two major significant ports. a lot of shipping goes to your. a lot of shipping comes to the united states to my home port in new jersey. i have read a series of articles and concerns in which the basis of the cargo inspection, databases of some of those ports being used where there is no inspection, or after an inspection takes place, the doors change with the seal has been issued, sort of like our guarantee. that, in fact, what has been inspected there has now, you know, legitimate and able to come to the united states, then the door is changed and moved to another container where ultimately what is in there is illicit drugs and maybe other items as well. can you talk to the committee a little about that? >> clearly, the drug trafficking organizations have recognized

that supports are a place where they can move shipments of drugs in united states and europe. the major port their, the dominican port, canseco, and then there's 15 or so other smaller ports. we could have investigations type of activity there. we work with our sensitive investigative units at targeting what's moving through those ports. there is issues, as you mentioned with port security. that needs to be looked at. but we continue to work with those trusted partners at the dose, targeting those organizations responsible for movement of drugs through the ports there. >> and finally, yesterday a dominican paper reported on the visit to the united states of

the dominican drug czar to discuss the creation of what he described as a maritime wall. can you comment on that? >> we have an operation called operation seawall. that is looking at maritime activity both from the interdiction focus, but in every piece of this, as the ambassador mentioned, it's not just interdiction we are looking at the entire organization. those responsible for movement, those transportation specialists, but then also targeting the leadership responsible in tracing those loads of cocaine off way back down to colombia. that's what we have to do. went to look at this for some, the transit zone and the arrival zone in places like new jersey and many, many other places that have negatively, negatively being impacted by these shipments of cocaine and heroin.

so it is a broad ranging approach but it is looking at from the source transit and arrival. >> finally, ambassador brownfield, i want to talk about funding. i see the administration asking for less funding for cbsi in fiscal year 12, question is why? and then i see over all, inl funding significantly lower from 565 million, versus 701 million. i recognize merit it may be part of that, decrease in funding for large equipment purposes, but i see our challenge growing the on the caribbean. and can you give the committee a sense as to why we're headed in the opposite fresh when our challenge is growing?

>> yes, mr. chairman. that said i am a team player and i accept that i'm part of a larger team and that it is, i'm not quarterback of the team and a do not call the place. what we have asked for is what has finally been approved in a complicated budgetary process, and its first within the department of state and then in a larger sense from the white house in terms of the administration and the president's budget request. i have been led to believe that we are operating in an environment where the expectation is we will take an absolute cut in our core budgets, and we must get to that cat. i'm operating in an environment where each of the regions where i am called upon to support programs, take a percentage cut so my global budget number is driven down. and then i have to get within a region by region or geographic

region by region number as well. this is driving the number that has been brought to me for you. you have not asked, but if you were to ask, would i in a more perfect world like and be able to make excellent use of a larger budget, of course i would. that said, i go back to my starting point. i am a team player. i will accept the number that the quarterback finally tells me, or the coach calls in in terms of the play. that's the best answer i can give you right now. >> i appreciate being a team player. i appreciate it more important, however, in the role in informing congress of the underlying decisions for public policy. is it fair to say that the reductions that we are seeing here are going to have consequences in terms of the fact that we need passionate it

seems they were spinning and he knows amount of money along the border between the united states and mexico just to intercede people who would come over but yet the underlying challenges there in central america, in the caribbean, which reduce the terms of transiting can easily be the place that it goes back to when we squeeze at the end of the day, write a long central america, squeeze there, now we see the caribbean, which is very porous, has waterfront tiers versus land frontiers. that challenge is, at the end of the day, going to be one that is not fully met. is that fair to say? i'm not asking you whether you are a team player or not. i appreciate you are but i want to know, as the chair of the subcommittee that, in fact, descended going to be more difficult for us to meet our challenges with the reductions we are seeing taking place? >> mr. chairman, as i said in my statement, i see a crisis coming and i believe our challenge is

going to get greater in the coming years. it is my view right now that congress has been generous over the last two years. we actually do have a substantial amount of funding in the pipeline. you have a reasonable expectation that i should be able to deliver concrete, measurable results in the course of this coming year in that regard. you have an equal right to expect from me and explanation as to how much more i truly and genuinely need for the post 2012 timeframe. i am trying to work for initiatives at the same time, plan colombia, merida in -- you have a right to expect me to offer you my best possible judgment and terms of how we can work those for initiatives simultaneously and with unrealistic expectations, what the united states senate and congress can offer us. >> mr. benson, if we agree

resources could you not deployed and effectively, your single mission? >> senator, we have a strong footprint in the caribbean, but if we had additional resources we could always deploy those resources to target that threat. >> is my point. there's no question we have to cut our national debt. there's no question that we have to meet our challenge. the question has to deal with intelligently while still meeting what i perceive as national security challenges. i unfortunately have seen too many families in which a child becomes addicted to a drug. and that is devastating for not only that child but for that family. i see too many murders take place on the streets of the cities that i have the privilege of representing. and a fair number of that is related to drug trafficking. so i don't want to be obfuscated by the fog of let's cut at any

cost when, in fact, there are some things for which the national interest and dignity of the united states still calls for. and i believe this is a field, a field that i intend to work very rigorously on in our jurisdiction of global narcotics. and to try to help bills so that we can meet that challenge. and i would appreciate honest answers to what it is that we need in order to get there. so with that, i understand senator rubio passionate ice want to take off on which her sing. i take a very so see. the reason why i rant on the other hand i would love to see and announces them made it is out there, of how much money we spend domestic but we don't address these issues. it sounds like we'll spend the money either way. whether we'll spend on the front end or spend it on the backend and at a higher human cost. that probably would be something interesting to look at. there may be some studies out

there already but the money will be spent because people are addicted come with crime domestic. this emerging crisis that mr. brownfield has outlined its us. the cost of that would be pretty hot as well. we will have to do with those a we work on that. very interesting. >> my thanks to this panel for all of your insights and for all of your missions, particularly mr. benson to you, and the men and women on the dea, thank you very much. we look forward to working with you to build our capacity at our ability to meet the challenge. with that, this panel is is this. thank you very much for your testimony. let me come as we bring of the second panel, introduce them. doctor eduardo, a professor of politics at florida -- we like to say anything about him? florida international university which also serves as the director of latin american and caribbean for evaluative senator rubio. >> is a member of the particle science faculty there as well which i believe the find political science faculty in the

southeast united states. that should because i coach each there. been and your so diplomatic. you limited to the southeast. dr. gamarra has written and edited a number of books. is worked on a console capacity on cabinet current issues and police organizations and federal agencies throughout latin america with a particular emphasis on counterparts efforts in the dominican republic. we appreciate his presence here. mr. farah is a senior fellow with the is a renowned national security consultant and analyst for close to two decades he was a foreign correspondent investigative reporter for the "washington post" and freelance for other publications such as "the boston globe," financial times. he's worked in colombia and venezuela, ecuador and bolivia.

we appreciate his insights here today. so with that, dr. gamarra, we will start with you. you each with some russia tests way for about five minutes, and then will have your full testimony entered into the record and without discussion after that. >> thank you very much, senator menendez and senator rubio, for the opportunity to provide his testimony about the overall situation. violence primarily in the dominican republic and the caribbean more broadly. as you noted over the past decade i've been working with the government of the dominican republic in addressing some of these problems and the impact particularly on democracy there. i've worked by merely as a consultant for firm based in miami which in 2004 was asked by president fernandez to design a comprehensive plan aimed at trying to address the trends

that were seeing at the moment to increased drug trafficking organization presents, drug consumption and, of course, violence. the democratic security plan was a comprehensive plan that included the development of a sub program called safe neighborhood which targeted the most violence prone neighborhoods of particularly in santiago and santo domingo. in addition to police component, the plant included a battery of social programs that for the most part were applied up to 110 neighborhoods throughout the country. initially the psd had some very promising results, violent death rates in the most violent neighborhoods of the country declined. and the national death rate which had almost reached 30 or 100,000, reached 17 per 100,000

in the year 2006. our conclusion at the time was that the combined presence of the police and implementation of this battery of social programs was responsible for restoring the rights of citizens to organize and participate actively in communal activities without fear of crime. might get is a good faith effort to address the problem that was unfortunately larger than the dominican republic and in essence the changing security situation around the caribbean. following its initial success, unfortunately violent death rates began to climb again and other forms of crime, especially muggings, robberies and the like exploded. and particular outside of those neighborhoods. our own evaluations concluded that the problems with both domestic on one hand and domestic in particular, senator menendez, had to do with the resilience, party, the resistance of the national police which resisted some of

the programs that we attempted to introduce to change the structure of the institution. that involves corruption to a series of problems related to lack of training and lack of resources. another issue is lack of coordination between what certain outfits were doing in government and the national please come and judicial system. but in my view, the final major problem was the lack of international support for the psd. the u.s. embassy, for example, provided very small and large in my view significant efforts to promote community policing and to strengthen the prosecutors office and the talking about dod or dea support. over the course of the past eight years in fact i think u.s. support for president fernandez initiatives have been limited. i would argue that even some of the state department reports about what the u.s. due to commute to policing and in strengthening the prosecutors offices are highly exaggerated.

the u.s. impact is quite small. in fact, at times i was said to him of the officials domingo saw the psd with great skepticism and even suspicion. and in my view of the narrow focus of the very limited assistance projects that the u.s. has had conspired in fact against the more comprehensive approach that the psd tried to initiate. same can be said for other international funding, the inter-american development bank and the world bank and others. now, i 2007, my research in particular confirm what has been said here already, enormous presence of transnational criminal organizations that were using the island not just the jamaican republic but certainly haiti to traffic drugs to both the u.s. and to your. i conducted focus groups throughout the dominican republic, basically very small communities which basically talked about very small communities. drugs that fell from the sky had

a very significant multiplier impact. first drug use became a problem, not just in santa domingo but around the country. second, as we said, drug bust in the dominican republic today are transnational as well. it's not dominicans alone that are being arrested, but you have multiple nationality that are involved and third most important, the dominican republic and large measure has becoming the place where numerous drug trafficking transnational organizations are settling their scores here in the 1990 some analysts include myself predicted the dominican republic would become the command and control center where drug trafficking in the caribbean, my sense is that today perhaps the dominican republic is close to that. in 2011 for situation is much more serious than in 2004. today, the state department report, u.n. world drug report

coincides at about 7% of all cocaine enters the united states passes through, and about 11% of all cocaine because to europe passes through the dominican republic. they are coming to diverse areas. air, land and sea. in my view again, the dominican republic with these very scarce resources has been trying to do certain things and certain things that are quite important for sample something that wasn't mentioned in the first panel, president fernandez and dated the republic by purchasing eight airplanes from brazil but, in fact, trying to shut down the air drops and the results at least in the first year have been quite positive. the u.s. look somewhat at that initiative. in my view the dominican republic had to do that because the bombardment had reached in fact epidemic proportions. so in conclusion come in my view, the purchase of those planes demonstrates the resolve

of governments in the region to spend and even in death themselves to counter a problem that is undermining their democracy. passing very quickly here to the american efforts, particularly to cbsi, my view is that this is an enormously important program because it's targeting the situation. this situation in the jamaican republic is affecting young dominicans, the most vulnerable sector of this situation. i have documented this to the research to link. they are the main victims of violence. they lack educational job opportunities and they face extraordinary discrimination. you who live in these neighborhoods are able to obtain employment outside of the neighborhoods where most affected by this. and they of course are not only victims but they're also victimizers. in that sense, dominicans, young dominicans are essentially being condemned to those lives.

to cbsi initiatives are worthwhile effort, but in my view are insufficient. and the three dimensions of it which is regionwide assessments, government and education alternatives and training in basic employment and vocational skills are very important, $5 million does not go very far. finally, i would say they so my experience of the dominican republic, that these underfunded programs have no real impact and contribute instead to deepening the gap between the promise and performance that plagues all democracies in the caribbean and the hemisphere. >> thank you very much. mr. farah? >> chairman menendez and ranking member rubio, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. as many others have said, drug trafficking routes and networks are like water running downhill but they were always seek the path of least resistance. the cbsi program in anticipation of the pressure being applied in mexico and colombia is aimed at making a somewhat is the more difficult to traffic cocaine and

other illicit drugs to the caribbean. the goals are laudable and necessary areas of cooperation in the small and generally under resource countries of the caribbean, and the program quickly anticipates the region's growing importance as a transnational shipping route not only for drugs, but for him smuggling and other transnational organized criminal activities. they are several significant roadblocks for the cbsi achieving these goals. the first is the growing political and economic influence in venezuela in the region, a significant drawback given that venezuela is a growing and primary gateway for the flow of illicit narcotics into the grieving, and that senior members of its governments have been sanctioned for their involvement in drug trafficking and working with designated terrorist entities. the second is the continuing existence of large offshore financial centers offering multiple services to a broader array of transnational criminal or decisions, both regional and extra regional, thereby like the prophets of illicit activities to flow back to criminal organizations. in 2004 president chavez

announced the formation. an alliance aimed at an economic structure that explicit excludes the united states but allies with iran and other regimes hostile to the united states. the to authoritarian governments were soon joined by the leaders of bolivia, ecuador, nicaragua, all espousing 21st century socialism. the leaders have one thing in common. or many things in common. among them, offering a truce support to the rubbish armed forces of pawlenty, farc. there's senior leaders in all of these countries were deeply corrupted and involved in the drug trade. in 2008 the nation joined and a 2009 st. vincent and the grenadines also joined the alliance. this is worrisome on multiple fronts. if they were sent to democracies in a different path, it would not be so troublesome. but when most authoritarian governments in the region form

an alliance that consistently utilizes the drug trade as the engine of statecraft, aligns itself with and facilitate the expansion of the influence of nations hostile to both the united states and its democratic allies, systematic reduces freedom of expression, political freedom, and the rule of law, this alliance cannot be. most other caribbean nations have joined all or are considering joining because of the cheap oil subsidies provided by venezuela which is a real economic boom. but the congressional research service found this has considerable risk. as they wrote in the recent report, u.s. cabinet products cooperation with venezuela has diminished since 2005 at venezuela has become a major transit point for drugs to the caribbean. in addition to the sea lanes over the eastern caribbean, significant drug transit, drug trafficking and sit through the airspace between venezuela and colombia into the eastern atlantic and caribbean coast of central america, particularly

hard hit are honduras, middle east and nicaragua. the chavez government protects drug traffickers. the public designation, close it is visors and senior government officials. as legendary district attorney robert morgenthau warned as he left public service in manhattan after 40 years, that there be no doubt that hugo chavez laid out on a corrupt government but one staff by terrorist if they can have strong ties to narco trafficking and money launderi laundering. one of the primary and is also not addressed by cbs eye is the extensive use of offshore banking and corporate registries that are part of the lifeblood of drug cartels. again our own government is

documented that an omlt of these anonymous jurisdictions. for example, agree to the state department in a british merchandise with 20,000 people as of september 2010, there were 456,547 active companies, 237 license banks, and 2951 mutual funds. the unique share structure does not require a statement of offers capital as well as the lack of mandatory filing of ownership which poses significant money laundering risk. that can be said for virtually any country in the grieving. almost all of them have the same, incredibly weak law. this ties back to venezuela which is now acting as a broker in the money laundering services for the cartel. the state department noted, money-laundering occurs to venezuela's commercial banks, exchange houses, gamblin says, roger lately invoiced foreign trade transactions, smuggling realistic, agriculture, livestock businesses. venezuela is not a regional financial center and doesn't have an offshore financial

sector, but many of its local banks have offshore affiliates in the grieving and that's one of the key gateways into the money-laundering world. i would say that the blind trust our particularly unnoticed in the region, although my own research in recent years has document that the muslim brotherhood as well as the bin laden family making dozens of companies in panama and elsewhere in the caribbean where the two other ships of the accounts were hidden and difficult to find. this summer the international investment corporation of the gulf, a wholly owned subsidiary, islamic banking institution linked to the muslim brotherhood reach agreement with the is with the is department of justice would they agreed to pay more than $30 million in fines and penalties for significant tax violations in the united states. in conclusion, i was a cbsi could be a useful tool for helping caribbean partners to combat drug trafficking, endemic corruption, violence, the erosion rule of law, that criminal groups bring to the initiative in my view will have

little impact in venezuela and all the nations in latin america and the caribbean to continue to criminalize and use transnational crime as part of statecraft in support of protection to drug trafficking and designated terrorist organizations such as the farc but when israel and its allies, drug trafficking to the united states as well as providing sophisticated eight and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit programs, any program, especially one as small as this one which does not deal with the source of the drugs flowing through which will do little to mitigate the problem. thank you. >> thank you both for your test mode. let me start, mr. farah, with you. we have seen clearly in iran seeking to use venezuela as a foothold in latin america. we also know that iran has been the biggest supporter of hezbollah. and we see that hezbollah has

acted in the region. do you have any sense from your history in the region, your reporting, your insights, whether hezbollah is working with drug cartels in the region? we saw some reports very recently of a whole host of banking related issues, all emanating out of this relationship. what can you tell us about that? >> i think one of the key objectives of iran, is to break out of its international isolation and break out of the banking section, particularly which i think makes the grieving particularly attracted to them. i think that there is little history of radical islam is activities in the region. but one of the real knows what once was the 2007 at attempt to bomb jfk and the gas lines we have members of the grieving. one of the person whose fling who has been arrested and was sentenced to life in prison was on his way out of, i think is

out of guy on the into venezuela to catch a flight to iran. that was set up at the u.s. court docket show by an iranian agent, by a guy dining had been i running agent for many years and he was distilled into flight that was supposed to a very significant terrorist attack. so i think of a footprint there. i think that they have done a great deal to disguise any think what was useful antony most concerning about all the relationships in the caribbean is that iran is using venezuela to hide its financial transactions. the more they can defuse that into other banking jurisdictions where it's difficult to track money anyway, the better off iran is. >> dr. gamarra, i appreciate your very balanced review, particularly of the dominican republic, and some of the initiatives there. i wonder, and we applaud certainly present fernandez and when they were seeking, on my personal view, that it was a good action when they were

seeking to try to control their own airspace over the country. so i looked at the purchase of the aircraft in a different way then maybe others did. having said that, is it not, however, at one dimension you see that, and in another dimension you see all of these challenges within the nation, the jamaican republics defense forces. the dominican republic's, you know, security force. elements of the dominican government that have been denied, we don't deny visas very easily am a particularly to officials and other governments, and yet there's been a slew of denials from our government of these to the united states by dominican republic an official. that sort of light seems to undermine, you know, at one level we are buying aircraft to

control the demented air face pashtun airspace. that undermined the very essence of the fight on the ground. so it's almost like a contrast where we try to control airspace but on the ground we're doing a whole host of different things, or not vigorously pursuing the cleansing of those entities. and then maybe that gives rise to your observation which i found very interesting and want to pursue, that in real terms very little financial assistance by the united states towards the initiatives in the dominican republic. so that's incredibly important as well, maybe gives rise to say well, we can't be spending money if we don't have a governmental structure that is responsive to these things. help me through some of the. >> right. first, senator menendez, i think, you know, your final

observation is something that the u.s. has have historically everywhere are out the region. and it's not surprising that this isn't the first time that somebody has called the country a narco state. i think we have to be cautious about that, especially because this is done in the context of an electoral campaign, and it said that a candidate who probably has no chance of winning the presidency. in the two cases he mentioned the fact, one who is serving prison in new york and another who was under arrest in puerto rico and the opposition was largely dismantled. just last week, theoretically the successors were arrested in the dominican republic as well. but in the main, i think him and we suffered in the context of working through this, through this program, we tried many things with the police, and we continue to try many things with the police.

we get very good responses. in fact, we argued very much for a purging of the institution, and there are occasional purchase and significant purchase, and yet the structures of organized crime seem to be able to reproduce themselves almost instantaneously within the organization. and so i think you have a very, very interesting contrast here between the will of the president and the capacity, the institutional capacity to carry things forward. >> please finish your thought. >> at the same time you have absence of funds to carry out a significant process of police reform, for example, but most important goals will have at the very same time the explosion of the situation in mexico. was happening as described by mr. farah writer and venezuela and all of a sudden which was already adding 2004 when this program was designed, and 2011 it's in fact much worse. and the realities we see it now,

we do monthly surveys on how dominicans feel about its security. the last poll taken just a few days ago shows that 60% of dominicans don't feel safe in their neighborhoods. >> actually is nature of the dominican country was not a consuming country, it's been a transshipment one but it has become now more of a consuming country because the cartels and the traffickers are paying in product. >> ripe. >> that has affected people. and i appreciate your observation, i was not suggesting the jamaican republics was a narco state. sometimes when you don't have a chance to win you say things that can either be our outrages or can be very honest. >> ripe. >> in that respect, the one thing about jost figueroa agosto, for a long time he

worked with in kennedy, within the dominican republic. would that not be fair to say? >> yes, absolutely fair to say. and, in fact, in three successive administrations, because it started out in the early 2000s when he fled puerto rico, came into the dominican republic under multiple, use multiple personalities, used, his front was as a business person and became really a very, very public and significant figure with great access to the police, to the dni, and even very prominent politicians. i think of a fortunate thing was, and i think largely as a result of cooperation with dea, that organization was dismantled. but as we know from experience in bolivia and in peru and colombia and elsewhere, these organizations very, very rapidly reorganize or are replaced by others. and i think part of what's

happening in the do make an republic because of a magnitude of the threat is that we already have replacements in place. >> senator rubio. >> thank you. just briefly for both of you. mr. farah, the gist of your test what does all the stuff is great as long as venezuela is out there, the true success can be very difficult to accomplish. all these other things we're doing is important but the ultimate season to fruition and bring about the kind of level of stability after, as long as venezuela is using i think the technology is right, using drug trafficking as part of statecraft it will be very difficult for us -- that's the root of the problem. is that an accurate kind of summary of what you are here to a? >> absolutely. i would like to correct my previous answer just briefly before answer that, is from trinidad to venezuela to get on the iran flight, as he left the jfk bombing incident. yes, i think that's right.

to me is like leaving the front door open while you try to lock the back door. there's no point can keep the stuff out. one of the things that a war to was saying was how much worse the situation independent republic is because there's more stuff now being channeled directly to them before there was a range of place, but the difference between colombia and venezuela, if you look at the airport is columbia's trying to stop them were as venezuela is giving an active protection. when you have a state protection of illicit activity, it becomes much more difficult to combat. i think that's a fair statement. >> kind of relate to that, dr. gamarra is slightly off-topic but i don't want to let go because he's i regarded expert in all of latin america and all those regions, talking about venezuela specific. what's your view, because i think it's related boldly to what we need to see in order to be successful in this effort. what is ready what is ready as we head towards 2012 and the upcoming elections or lack

thereof, whatever's going to happen, and in particular what happened in nicaragua a few weeks ago could ultimately impact the direction that leaders there may or may not go. that's kind of an open-ended question with only a few minutes left. what is your view of the situation in venezuela, the political situation as the opposition seems to hopefully be able to coalesced and somebody in my opinion anyways and how does that play a? >> yeah, it's a very interesting process. the opposition will have its elections in early february and will elect a candidate. that are at least in my opinion two or three very good candidates on the opposition side, but it's kind of interesting what's happening on the side of the government. this is probably one of the more difficult things that i think the u.s. has been largely unable to explain, the continued popularly of president chavez, both abroad and domestically. and part of it i think we see it in public opinion polls. i unfortunate am now in the business of public opinion polling, and present chavez's

popularity has shot right back at. in part because of his battle with cancer. and that just this month in the summer he is actually given five salaries to public employees. and so is republican ploy and you're getting five salaries at the end of the year, i would vote for him, too, probably. so i think his popularity is almost, if he survives, will guarantee him the presidency next year. i don't see the opposition really having putting forth the capacity to win an electoral battle. and i think what you're asking is whether there will be fraud, given what happened in nicaragua. again, given president chavez is popular, he probably will not be fraud. but he has a record of not conducting the cleanest elections either. >> do you have any doubt there was fraud in nicaragua? >> no, i don't. not at all. >> thank you both.

>> thank you. >> let me follow up on senator rubio's question, because you said something that i found it interesting that it's been my observation that, of course, it seems to me and i would love to your opinion of it, that hugo chavez is using the national patrimony of venezuela to buy his way, both influence in the hemisphere and, of course, in its own election. so if you spend enormously, you know, as you suggest, i don't know if it is bonuses or salaries, whatever it is, the equivalent of it, and you spend the national patrimony by giving out oil and subsidized or free throughout the hemisphere, of course that's all resources that could go to the venezuelan people for education, health care, food, health care. i mean for a variety of purposes. is that not fair to say that a large degree he is using the nation's resources for his own political grand iceman? >> yes, i think so, senator. the reality is that given

venezuela's wealth, while poverty in venezuela has decreased, it hasn't decreased to the extent that one would expect. one of the wealthiest nations on earth to have a poverty rate of almost 30%, where you have poverty declines in the rest of the region mgc very different policy defined and without the natural wealth that venezuela has. by the same token, and business address a little earlier, the reality is that some countries that benefit from the oil are countries that have great paradoxes, that they are democracies are largely dependent on the subsidies that they get. and it's inexpensive subsidy by the way because while they're getting oil, this is a long-term investment that now is making these countries extraordinarily financially dependent, because they will have to repay the oil

that is being subsidized at the moment. >> mr. farah, last observation. >> briefly, on one of the interesting things with venezuela is it's essentially every time it goes broke it manages to find a donor, particularly china. last year when china came in $20 billion it's being paid back in petroleum at a price of $18 a better. that's a very good deal for china but it's enough to keep the chavez government allies. i think one of the things you see in the criminalization, the increased drug trafficking there is they need other resources to maintain the loyalty of the military, civil servants and others. as other legitimate resources run out and they turned increasingly to drug profits to fill that void. i think that's one of the great benefits that we've seen from the relationship with far, ability to receive extra budgetary infusions of cash that allow them to then dispense large assets. >> but taking your point and this is what i see on the

horizon for the people of venezuela, 18, to sell to the chinese and $18 a barrel when oil is hovering somewhere, i haven't seen the latest price in the last couple days, but somewhere in the '90s range, it is in essence giving it away to have a temporary flow of money. but in the process you are taking a nation, it's not mr. chavez's money, it's the nation's money, and so if you think about it, both what he's doing throughout the hemisphere and what he's doing in this transaction, which is very interesting one for you to note, is undermining the long-term national interest of the people of venezuela. you can imagine, instead of those subsidies, that money was being used to create greater upward mobility, that you would have a 30% of poverty in a country that is so wealthy. so it's ironic he is seen as the populist win at the same time it's almost like a roman circus.

you keep people temporary entertainment at the end of the day you are dramatically undermining their ability for social mobility. and within their own country. thank you very much. i think you at your conversation. we appreciate your testimony. the record will remain open for two days for members who may have questions, any questions are submitted to any of the witnesses, answer them expeditiously. and with that, this hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] with the iowa caucuses and new hampshire primary next month, c-span series the contenders looks back at 14 men who ran for president and lost. ..

it took me about ten seconds to learn how to use it. >> anytime anywhere get streaming audio of c-span radio and all three c-span television networks including live coverage of congress. you can work through the interview program including q&a, newsmakers, communicators and after words. c-span. is available wherever you are. find out more at c-span.org/radioapps. >> now remarks from merck ceo kenneth frazier on health care in the pharmaceutical industry. he was interviewed by wall

street journal managing editor alan murray in new york. mr frazier was merck's ceo for a year. prior to that he was in charge of the company's defense against litigation including the drug fox --vioxx. he was put in charge of child sexual abuse at the university. frazier is the trustee has all of the pens state alum. this event is just over an hour. >> we had a strong year and strong topline performances at 5% of growth and the top line. we introduce new products into the market. we have 19 products in development, eight filed in the next couple years. we think things are going relatively well. >> i want to talk about research and innovation. that is part of we talked about this morning. there's an interesting book written by a business school professor, marshalled goldsmith called what got you here will get you there. >> i read it.

>> you are an interesting case because what got you here from reading the press was your defense of the company from vioxx claims. but what will get you there is overseeing innovation, a new generation of innovation in drugs. seems like a different skill sets. >> completely right on that. i guess i would say a couple things about that. the defense of vioxx was a defense of innovation at the end of the day. many people thought as they passed the war around courtroom that lawyers that inside a company like merck accompany that is committed to scientific excellence and research integrity, spending -- how we handle vioxx, critical tool as we are the company, one of the most studied drugs in the history -- the charge that we

are in some way trying to cover up the true safety profile of the drug was would be -- was the lied by the data and we are fortunate that when this case -- the cfo side, most often cited with us but back to your question, i have been very fortunate in my career that a ceo going back to lloyd magilos who hired me for and insisted that i not be in the legal department. i was responsible for public policy and communication. board members from my staff, one of great communicators of our time and i learned a lot about the need to communicate. what we were communicating was the value of pharmaceuticals and the importance of innovation. and when we talk about -- our current and casio who retired

last month, dick clark allowed me to run the business of merck for 3-1/2 years. i had some experience outside the legal department and i think that was very helpful. >> the legal phrase helpful in being a ceo? >> that is a hard question for me to answer. i think that some aspect of it can be helpful. the ability to sort of cut through the clutter and try to find what is not only important but helpful, i don't think by and large business and law are very close to one another. the way business people think is different. the way lawyers think about protecting business is different things. in some ways i don't think it is perfect preparation but i was very fortunate at merck. the majority of my time in the company was spent outside the legal department. >> you started about a year ago. you made a strong statement

shortly after starting research and development was the core of the company and you intended to focus on that. you had a new ceo in pfizer and around this thing that makes a difference statement that the time talking about cutting costs and r&d. in the 12 months since, pfizer has increased 20% in terms of the stock price and merck too. what is the marketplace telling you? >> first of all i am very pleased we stayed about the same because for a long time we were very much down in terms of our stock price. >> because of vioxx. >> it was this year. initially i think the issue we had to do more with an issue that came in the pipeline with a drug called forecasta which was one of the most important drugs in development. i will say this about r&d.

at merck, science and translating cutting edge science and genetically important product always improves the core of what is defined as its purpose in the world. without commenting on anyone else's strategy, i think the position that i took was consistent with merck's core values and what merck's strengths are. when one runs a company like merck with long lead times in terms of development, it is important to keep in mind you are not necessarily learning the company for immediate reaction of the stock market. obviously i could tell you it is better to have the stock go up than down. what we're trying to do is run the company to create sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. from my perspective and the management team agrees, the most sustainable strategies around innovation because over time the

marketplace will try very hard to, ties goods and services and the only way to escape that, the only way to provide sustainable high returns for shareholders much less for customers are patients is to do the innovation. >> there are investors out there who think big pharma r d model is broken, a company like merck can't productively invest $8 billion in a way that will get a decent return. is that part of the message you are hearing from the market? >> i do hear that from some investors. let me just say is that if we were seeing here, four years ago in 2007, merck would have been at the tail end of introducing eight important new products including cervical cancer vaccines or type ii diabetes or

hiv. at that time no one was saying you shouldn't invest. the problem with r and d is it is not always consistent. it is not like engineering where you can incrementally innovate and make another version of the iphone. we are trying to do something -- we have to reinvent ourselves every ten years. we have to come up with a completely new compound that works as targeted for different patient population, provides benefits in terms of medical needs. that doesn't happen regularly. it happens up and down. if you look in the past there have been other shallow periods but over the long term, science has always made progress. basic science has always made progress and there's a lag time between cobb -- progress in

basic science and companies like merck or pfizer or others to apply what we learned that basic science and come up with new drugs. what i am saying is having looked at the past, having seen these changes in the past, i am confident that if we focus on cutting edge science, the right targets and if we put into place the kind of environment inside merck where world-class science makes it a career in merck, over the long term the return on investment will come back. >> what have you done to maximize that? >> first of all my colleague dr. peter caned who runs research lab is focused on the r o i questions as much as any ipos. what we did for example is look at barriers that we were in and made some decisions, narrow therapeutic areas to focus on basic research dollars going

forward. we continue to hire the best talent. we continue to work internally so that we can make better decisions to kill compounds earlier because the cost of failure is what you are managing. 98% of your project going to fail. the question is can you make it 98 or 99? it is important that if you're going to fail you fail early before you expend a lot of money. those are the things that we focus on internally to ensure we return our improvement on investment. >> one thing that has told people on medical r&d is the fact that ten years ago we had this decoding of the human genome and there was so much excitement about that scientific discovery and a feeling that that would revolutionize medicine and ten years out it really hasn't. nothing seems to have changed that much. what do you say to people who

tell you that? >> i say a couple things. they have to be patient. if you look back, in the late 1970s the dominant way to discover drugs was in the protesting. you take soil elements and plant extracts, extract chemicals from them. then we learned how to synthesize molecule's the personal things of that nature but the change between procedural approach and chemistry approach wasn't overnight. took a while for people to begin to take these new approaches and figure out how to apply them in the context of industrialization of pharmaceutical development. the same thing is happening with the human genome. i am not a scientist as we already established but i talked to my scientific colleagues all the time. they look at areas like oncology and immunology and what used to be a black box. they're beginning to understand

these processes. often targets what is involved in cancer or as the or these conditions. it will take some time before people can master that and really pick the right target and find the right interventions for those molecules'. i am convinced that it will happen. >> next decade? >> absolutely. >> what will that mean? you mentioned cancer. 40 years since the war on cancer was declared? feels a little like the war in afghanistan. progress is hard to measure. are we going to see that change in the next decade? >> we have seen a couple drugs this year that made a real impact on certain tumor types. i think that gives us reason to believe that if we continue to apply the science in that context you will be able to conquer specific types of cancer. cancer is an interesting word

that describes a lot of diseases that actually involve tumors. one of the issues we're dealing with is it is not something like hypertension or high blood pressure were medication can treat a very broad population of people. what we are learning is how to find drugs that affect specific tumor types. i see progress. a couple drugs had phenomenal impact. >> can you quantify that at all? ten years from now, how many types of cancer will have effective treatments? how much of a reduction? >> i can't quantify as i sit here today. i would be making a wild guess but i can set -- >> we are fine with wild guesses. >> let me say a whole bunch. i am convinced when you look at progress that we made in the last ten years, that you see acceleration of our

understanding in oncology and i think as we begin to understand the molecular targetss, we will be able to target compounds that actually affects those specific tumor types. >> we made it this far in the conversation without making any reference to public policy. you wrote a pretty tough piece in the wall street journal, this summer i guess it was attacking some of the aspect of the health care bill saying that they would prevent innovation. >> one of the big challenges the industry faces, i spent the last few minutes telling you how excited we are about the science and we are very excited by the science but one of the challenges we have is what kind of marketplace will there be when we come up with new drugs? that is where public policy comes in. globally before we hit the

united states, governments tend to be our customers outside the united states so when you're dealing with public policy or the economy is a around the world, really important that there be a public policy environment that is conducive to the kind of innovation we are talking about. our business requires significant investments over long period of time, significant amounts of scientific and regulatory uncertainty. it is hard for us on top of that to have a marketplace where public policy doesn't really support new drugs that have a profound impact. >> are you saying by and large the governments who procured drugs in most other countries don't give you the incentives for innovation? >> i think overtime the incentives have been lessened the. in europe right now where those countries are facing major problems that we all know about in terms of the deficits that they have and the lack of

economic growth that goes along with this deficit, many countries are struggling in the social welfare system to afford health care at the level of the population. one of the impacts is they tend to focus on one part of the health care bill which i call the ingredient class. >> partly because it is a big cold. >> generally 10% of health-care costs, drug costs. the other 90% have to do with other ways of providing health care. hospitals and physicians and diagnostic procedures and frankly -- how those services are provided. we are 10% of the health care bill. i think frankly when you look at the use of drugs, proper use of drugs tends to be for a cost factor. it is an easy target if one segregated part of the health

budget is growing because new drugs, people say let's keep that static. that is antithetical to innovation. we introduced hepatitis b drug. the importance of that drug is previous therapy, wooley assertive patients clear -- effectively helped your. those cure rates are around 70% or 80%. i was with the german health minister who looks like he is 35 years old. defect is we were talking about the fact that in germany, health technology agency has determined that this change to 8% was real innovation that has to be paid for. if that is the case it is hard to have an industry like that. what is happening is people were putting their finger on the scale because they know there's an economic problem. is important for us. the reason i wrote that piece in the wall street journal is it

important ceos and others are very loud about the importance of paying for innovation. real innovation when it occurs. >> one thing that frustrates americans who have looked at this question is we seem to be paying for innovation for the world and we're delighted to have the most innovative pharmaceutical companies in this country but the costs of innovation is baked into the cost we pay for drugs and everyone else is getting a discount. >> let me start by saying before we get to the cost of drugs, recognize the u.s. has the benefit of a strong industry. european countries pharmaceutical businesses in the united states. one of the few net exporting industries we have left in the united states. let's not forget the benefit that it provides the country in terms of very strong industry along with the computer industry in silicon valley. we don't have that many strong

american industries but getting to the cost side of things, that is a challenge. agreed deal of transparency worldwide in the cost of drugs and countries like the united states or germany. germany wants to pay the same price that bulgaria is paying. if that is the world in which you live two things happen. first of all you take away the incentive for innovation as we talked about and the second thing is you remove the incentive for differential pricing because people who can't afford to pay more are forced to pay the same amount as wealthy people what you're going to do is discourage the use of drugs in those 4 countries. to me that is not a moral position to take. i understand the frustration of looking at other price controls and say we wish we had those prices. one more thing people should recognize. the other problem in many price

control machines is the newest drugs take longer to get to patients so you also want to have a situation where you have a free market where physicians can make individual medical judgments about this new drug is going to provide a salient -- particular patient. i would say you can't have everything. you can have cheap prices in the most innovative industry in the world and one problem we have to think about in our country is how many strong vital sustainable industries do we have that are located in the united states. >> your fear is the united states is with inflated health care law moving in the direction of constitutional price control. >> i would not say near germany but what you can see was under way as a process by which the u.s. government becomes more and more of an important customer to us and the u.s. government has financial challenges, we have to find a sensible way to reduce

health-care costs. i support the idea is that we have to reduce health-care costs so generic drugs ought to be used for those drugs working effectively. if you go after it in a way where you say i am going to put a cap on what innovation can provide, we started at the beginning, investors are restive about the challenges. >> is that holding down your stock price? the regulatory regime? >> i don't have to speculate because i talk to investors. most of the largest investors not withstanding the challenges we have when we announced we would not disproportionately cut research. most of the big investors that we think that will be the right thing to do. you have to work on the r o i internally and promise that you will engage the public policy environment to ensure that if you do get a drug across the finish line it can get reasonable reinforcement. >> how are you doing on that

score? have you talked to the president about it? at what level do you engage? >> in actuality, i had the honor of being received in the oval office earlier this year by the president and i have opportunity to express my views on certain issues in terms of the health care law and the fda. he was incredibly gracious to meet half an hour at a time. i did do that. at the same time -- >> a good response? >> i did get a good response. i don't know if it is translated into action so far but certainly a good conversation and i think the president understands we need to maintain a viable industry here. the other issue is how much time can you spend with congress? that is where the action is. we spend a lot of time on the whole trying to persuade people that putting additional rebates on the part d benefit, a benefit

that has two virtues, one of which was well-received by seniors around the country. i say seniors with hesitation because i am now probably being viewed as one. but also it is one of the few government programs that has come in under budget. it has used the private market and i think it is a mistake to tamper with the benefit that provide such satisfaction to people and comes in under budget. if we put price control in the united states like the ones in germany and other countries i think we are taking away a huge amount of innovation. >> we had last year on this stage sam paul lozano --palla n --pallazano from ibm talking about how to save money. that is the problem. i said there was an example. the top example he gave was i told the president that if the government would negotiate for

its drugs directly from the pharmaceutical companies rather than going to intermediaries it could get a better price and save billions of dollars. what do you think? >> a terrible idea. first of all having had the experience of negotiating with european gun makers is not what it means. it is not a negotiation. they set the price. secondly i go back to what i just said. part the benefit is one of the few benefits that has come in under the way it was scored. reality of the world is lots of people out here are employers who go to health plans that provide the right balance between cost-effectiveness and benefits to their employees. the congress has a benefit for the federal employee health benefit plan. the fact of the matter is the private market has worked pretty well when it comes to drug

prices. we provide very significant competitive rebates on our products in order to get them -- i don't see that there's a problem that needs to be fixed. >> the problem is trust. >> you could say the problem is price but when you say that what you are really saying, you don't want new drugs. and can't be in a business where i take this much risk, spend $8 million. i am going at the new target, huge uncertainty around them. in that got left i get to a regulator, and save a problem is priced. every drug that was on the market in the year 1995, high standard of care is already generic. either the american people want to live with today's standard of care or they actually want a drug -- we have four programs going on. one of the most pivotal programs

to test one of the fundamental hypotheses of all time -- and won't get into the details but the extent of my knowledge of neuroscience. a program that we are expending a significant amount of time and effort on. if that program is successful we will have a drug in ten years. the thing about the societal costs of alzheimer's, we can't possibly charge the enough in terms of price to not make that a net benefit to our society but if you say the drug's cost too much and you got to the intellectual honest about this, i think the drugs we have today are good enough. i don't mean the ones we come up with the most. >> you were talking about the importance of merck engaging in public policy. we had a flat this year about merck engagement in public policy in texas. >> i heard about that. >> where the governor mandated -- there was a lot written about

his former chief of staff, lobbyist for your company. it was a case study in how involvement in public policy can get you any hornet's nest of trouble. >> i agree. the story is many years old. >> wasn't under your watch. >> the point i was making is it got recycled in the context of a political campaign were among other things we were told this drug which prevents most cases of cervical cancer, the vast majority cause mental retardation in girls. the level of political discourse around it was very low. the fact of the matter is governor perry signed an executive order. you probably know the texas legislature -- interesting innovation in that it needs only every other year--maybe that is a good thing. i am not sure. in the interim he decided that

given what he had learned not just from the lobbyists that his own public health people about the importance of this vaccine in terms of preventing cervical cancers that he would violate executive order. it created a firestorm in texas because the difficulty of this drug against cervical cancer is caused by a virus transmitted sexually and it becomes an issue about whether you are promoting promiscuity versus protecting girls from cancer. that sort of blew up in the governor's face into he immediately retracted that. the discussion this year frankly was what happens when people are running for president? if you believe those issues i think at the end of the day the concept of the governor of texas would sign an executive order providing vaccination of every girl in the state simply because somebody wanted to become a lobbyist and it is a little bit in direct. >> it doesn't for a new too

much. >> the appearances i have to say, i do get by with respect to the american people, people are concerned that various elements of society have too much access to the political system, by political contributions and lobbying efforts but what merck has tried to do, lobby for what we believe to be sound public policy principles because what is good for the patient -- >> we're taking you to the capital where house democratic leader sunni hoyer --steny ho e hoyuer is speaking to her for reporters. >> legislation would give certainty and assurance to seniors, to the unemployed and 1 sixty million americans at risk

of losing their tax cut on january 1st. the ability to have that certainty and have that confidence not just at this holiday period but in january and february while we take action to try to come agreement on the 1-year extension that we want. .. >> there's five conferees who

said at one time or another are opposed to the tax cut and made comments similar to the speakers that the middle class tax cut is a gimmick. well, the middle class doesn't believe that. the working men and women of the country don't believe that, and they don't believe it's a gimmick reject having the wealthiest in america from paying some additional small increment so this bill could have passed in the senate months ago. i regret that the republicans who say they are here to work, we were on the floor to do our work, and they walked out. now i want to yield to mr. van hollen, the ranking member on the committee. >> thank you. i think as you saw the presiding officer brought the people's house into session and immediately gaveled it to a close before giving us an opportunity to ask for unanimous

consent to take up a bill which is identical to the senate bipartisan compromise bill to extend the payroll tax cut. the speaker of the house and the republican leadership were a-wall on the floor of the house today. i didn't see any of them. the speaker of the house, as we speak, he can walking down the hall, enter into a unanimous cop sent agreement to take up the republican compromise bill, the identical house version that's right here, and if we can vote op this today -- op -- today, we would get the same result ring and by the end of the day, we would have a bill on the president's desk to ensure 150 million americans receive a cop tippuation of the tags cut

tonight, and we can make sure that millions of americans will stay be assured there doctors will there and ensure the doctors are vail because they will ensure full payment. it's a real tragedy that the house republican leadership did not she up today because had they. there -- we'll be here every day waiting for them to come to the floor of the house to actually take up this legislation so that we can

get it done. >> why aren't you guys not on the floor? they were here on the floor to alert the chamber, but they were there. why not now? >> the premise that the democrats wouldn't be here if there's business to do would be wrong. we were there to ask that the house, and they walked out, and they were not on the floor, and the acting speaker of the floor walked out, and more importantly than that, they walked out yesterday when we were all here. they walked out on 89 senators, 39 republicans. senator brown, senator mccain, the "wall street journal" all said senator snowe, senator --

who am i -- lugar, one of the senior republican members have all said task this bill and do what we do all the time, what families do all the time. when you can't get an agreement on something you know you need an agreement on, but you want to continue in place, the existing agreement, you made a short term agreement saying we'll do for awhile, but let's decide long term. that's what the senate did. the house knows, the house republican leadership knows they couldn't get an agreement. they walked out yesterday with us here ready to do the work without giving us the opportunity to vote on the senate product that had overwhelming bipartisan support. >> sessions before, and whether it's democrats or republicans in charge at varying times, people tried to make motions and do things. i've been here a long time, and

i never saw anybody get recognized in this. did you think they'd recognize you, and how can you say in this case -- >> chad, i can't remember a time, maybe you can. i've been here a long time myself. i can't remember a time when 160 million americans were adversely affected by the actions we took yesterday, where 160 million americans are uncertain as to whether or not their tax cut is going to continue on january 1st. where 48 million seniors were going to be lacking confidence that their doctors will be available to them because they're not going to be compensated properly as everybody agrees they should be, and that 3 million americans are concerned about losing their unemployment insurance and they how support themselves and their family. i can't remember a similar situation. very frankly, what has happened is the republicans have taken hostage those 160 million people.

they've taken hostage those 48 million people. they've taken hostage those 3 million people, so that it would be done their way or the highway. >> but you really didn't think you would get recognized based on history. >> well, in my hearts of hearts, chad, and my experience in the past, and my understanding that on -- and you've heard me read the list of how many times they walked away -- the answer to your question is i was not surprised that they walked away from resolving this issue on behaver of the american -- behalf of the mirren people. >> the end of the year, and we're back in crisis mode. >> yes. >> you said this has been a congress that went from crisis to crisis. >> yes. >> boehner explained it last week this is what you get with divided government or is this something else? >> glad you asked that question. the most difficult vote we ever cast was when president bush was

president, and we had a deeply falling economy and a financial crisis, and president bush came to the democratic leadership of the house and the senate saying we have a crisis, and we're going to go into a deep depression if you don't act. two-thirds of president bush's party, just as they did yesterday, walked out on america. democrats stood with president bush because we thought the country was in crisis, and we acted, and as a result of that action in my opinion, we avoided a depression. unfortunately, we still had a deep recession, which we're still suffering from, still pulling ourselves out of that, but the fact of the matter is that we have been there time and time again to act in a bipartisan tbation to make sure that this government and this country remains stable and successful.

>> the other point here though is they were not divided in the senate. they were not divided. you had 80% of the republican senators support this payroll tax cut, so the real question is why is it that the house republicans are so divided from the senate republicans and the senate democrats and house democrats and friends of the united states in terms of getting something done. that's the question facing the house of representatives, and i think the answer is clear over the last couple days in the fact which you have an extreme right wing element in the house of representatives that hijacked the process which is why they refuse to even bring up the bipartisan bill for an up or down vote because they were afraid they'd get the same bipartisan results in the house as they got in the senate. they are afraid of bipartisanship, and the reason is because they have this very right wing element.

let's also remember the house republican leadership was opposed it a payroll tax cut. two month, three month, six months, one year. their record is full of statements where they were opposed to it. their action the other day by refusing to take up the senate compromise bill in sending this bill off to die, it was, in fact, intended to accomplish what they wanted to accomplish in the beginning which was to have no payroll tax cut. now, the reason we went to the floor today is to give them another opportunity to do that. it is absolutely the case that the speaker of the house and republican leadership could have come down to the floor today, entered into unanimous consent agreement to take up this bill, which is identical to the senate compromise bill, and we could have gotten this done today, and the american people could go to sleep tonight knowing that come january 1st, they would have a payroll tax cut, unemployed americans looking for jobs would

know they could still put food on the table, and doctors could be assured they could continued to be paid for medicare patients they see. >> let me just add -- >> [inaudible] >> there is a bipartisan agreement, an agreement voted on overwhelmingly by republicans and democrats in the senate. in fact; it was the republican leadership in the senate. remember, the republican leadership in the senate blocked a vote on the house republican bill in the senate. >> let me add, if i can, jill, to your question, and then i want to say something about the con ferees. not only is there an agreement by the overwhelming ma joyty united states senate, but americans agree. poll after poll says we ought to get this done. it's not simply that the tea party controlled conference over

here disagrees with the united states senate. they are not representing the views of the american people. now, let me say something of the conferees. those appointed by speaker boehner all opposed at one point in time or another the extension of the tax cut. this is a device, a gimmick, a political charade, if you will, to pretend support for something that they have historically, over the last year, opposed. >> following up on chad awhile ago, the democrats wanted politics to end here and get to business, and the republicans are the same. with all respect, is this more jargon we had for the last hour? if you want gimmicks to end, why is it you're still saying it's partisan gimmicks and it's a

show with all respect. >> with all respect, i think your premise of a dog and pony show -- this is democracy. we are sighing that we believe very importantly we ought to pass what the senate, no dog and pony show, overwhelming bipartisan support -- no, no, let me answer the question -- >> [inaudible] house republicans with a pseudoconference committee when they know there's not going to be a conference committee. it seems like game planning at the same time both sides call for the game to end. why is that? >> we're not playing a game. we're prepared to have the bill come back and pass it, send it to the president, and we can do it today. that's not a game. none of the 160 million people will lose their tax cut because of a game. none of the 48 million americans concerned about continuing access to the doctors think it's a game. none of the folks on

unemployment who rely on that unemployment to feed themselves, to help support their families think this is a game. this is not a game. why are you all here? why are we able now to communicate to the american public? because we went to the floor, went to the floor to speak to the american people and members of the house of representatives. unfortunately, the speaker walked up, not speaker boehner, but speaker protemp. he walked off the floor, shut off the cameras. we are here under serious business, no game. that's what senator mccain was talking about, what senator brown is talking about, what senator olympia snowe is talking about, what senator lugar is talking about. they are talking about get this work done, and unfortunately, i can name 12 incidences on a list here, i won't bother to do that,

where republicans walked away from solving serious problems. this is not a game. thank you. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> as you heard, the house will be back for another pro forma session friday. yesterday, by a vote of 223-193, the house blocked a bipartisan senate version of the bill to extend the tax payroll tax cut for two months, house republicans also called for a conference with the senate. here's a look at this morning's pro forma session in the house. >> order. the chair lay before the house communication from the speaker. the speakers are in washington, d.c., december 21st, 20 # 11, i hereby appoint the honorable

michael g. fitzpatrick to be speaker. >> the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, lutheran church of the reformation, washington, d.c.. >> let us pray. gashes -- gracious god, you give us light in the darkness, praise you for the galaxies, stars, and the moon that shine in the night. we bless you for lamps and candles that light our communities. we thank you for the fires that warm our homes and energize our work. we repent for the ways we pollute the about of the night, the ways we extinguish the light of companionship, the ways we fail to share your warmth. light our darkness, be the day spring for those suffering from addiction and illness. be the bright morning star for

those woo are grieving. be the sun of justice for those living under oppression and impoverty. be the cleansing fire for those who survive violence and warfare . traveling, send us with your light to share with friends and strangers. welcoming light our gathering with your love. searching for justice and peace, light our way. amen. >> pursuant to session 3a ofhouse resolution 493, the jowrn of the last day's proceedings is approved. the pledge of allegiance will be led by the gentleman from maryland, mr. van hollen. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united united states of america, one republic under which is stands indivisible with

liberty and justice for all. >> pursuant to 493, the house is adjourned until 10 a.m. until friday -- >> mr. speaker? mr. speaker? >> the senate bill -- >> the speaker would like to ask for unanimous concept we bring up the bill to extend the tax cut for 160 million americans as you walk off the floor, mr. speaker, you're walking out, you're walking away just as so many republicans have walked away from middle class taxpayers, the unemployed, and very frankly, as well from those who will be seeking medical assistance from their doctors, 48 million senior citizens. we regret, mr. speaker, you walked off the platform without addressing the issue of critical importance to this country, and that is the continuation of the middle class tax cut, the continuation of unemployment benefits for those at risk of losing them, and the continuation of access for doctors for all those 48 million

seniors who rely on them daily for their health, and i am pleased to yield to my friend, mr. van hollen. >> thank you, mr. hoyer. [inaudible] [inaudible] >> will return for another pro forma session 10 a.m. eastern friday, and we'll have that live on c-span. >> with the iowa caucus and new hampshire primary next month, the contenders looks back at 14 men who ran for president and had a long lasting impact on politics. here's the line up for this week.

>> now texas governor, rick perry, on a bus tour through iowa. sunday was the final campaign stop in decorah, iowa in the northwest corner of the state talking about immigration, energy independence, and changing the regulatory process. this is an hour.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> okay. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> hello, and last time i saw a crowd like this, we had eight people running for county supervisor. you know, at least you're not all running for something. it's a great pleasure to introduce -- i'm mike englehart, some of you know me, i teach at luther, share the republican party of the county, and great pleasure to introduce the strong

conservative who comes from pan creek, grew up on a to cotton farm, earned the rank of eagle scout, a pilot of the united states air force, and served the state of texas as governor for more than a decade. his home state created more than 1 million jobs during his tenure as governor, even as america lost jobs. please welcome america's jobs governor and a candidate for the republican nomination for president, rick perry. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, dr. mike. how are you, sir? good to see you. thanks for coming out tonight, all of you, on a sunday evening, all the broncos and the patriots are playing. i will be brief so you can catch

the fourth quarter, but it is an honor to be here with you, and dr. mike, i want to take a few minutes to share with you a little bit about who i am and where i'm from. i know that sometimes in one minute opportunities in debates you don't get to really find out about someone, and that's the reason that rather than taking off back to warmer climbs after the debate in sioux city, we made the decision we want to spend time driving across iowa, talking with people, sharing with them our heart and listen to them and we'll open it up for questions after we get through here, but i know mike shared with you that i grew up on small farm. we were cotton farmers. you guys really know how to grow things up here in iowa, corn, soy beans, and we've seen a lot

of beautiful farmland that's all laid by for the winter, and the communities remind me a lot of where i grew up. i grew up about 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office, and in a very rural community. there was a -- there was a little school out on the farmer market road with 120 kids grades 1-12 and a methodist and baptist church, your choice. if you wanted the lutheran church, you had to go elsewhere. i know there's a good lot ran community here -- lutheran community here in decorah, but the point is, very rural, very, you know, the house i grew up in didn't have running water until we were in 1955-56, in that time, but there's people that would say as they watched

how i grew up, that i was -- that my family was poor, but we weren't. you know, we had a very -- i didn't want to settle for anything, i had a pony and a dog, and all the things you'd need, and my mom was a bookkeeper at a cotton gin, but frankly, we were rich, and it was life, family, and faith, and when i was not in school, i was involved in 4-h raising club calfs or working towards my eagle scout. i wanted to be a veterinarian, that was my life's dream, went to texas a&m university, and that's where god introduced me

20 organic -- to organic chemistry, and i had a little why in my life, and the vietnam war was going on, and so i volunteered to fly in the united states air force, and then i never left the state of texas, but just a few times in my life until the early 70s, and one of those was as a boy scout to the national jamboree, went to washington, d.c., philadelphia to see the liberty bell, liberty hall, freedom hall, and the world's fair was going on in 1964 in new york, and so other than that i never left the state of texas until i graduated from undergraduate pilot training, and my duty station was a c130 base. we were a tactical squadron, and then i lived all over the

world. europe and south america and central america. i lived in saudi arabia in the 1970s, mid-1970s as that country transitioned into iran. in that period of time, obviously, before 79, but i started seeing how different countries and their governments and the structure of their governments and for the first time i really paid attention and thinking about this country we live in, and the reason i share that story with you is because i'm -- as a young man, it became very obvious to me what a great country we live in, and that the freedoms and liberties we have sometimes we take for granted, and the founding fathers put together this country because they were really concerned about this big government, this powerful far away, centralized

government, and they were willing to risk their treasure and their good names, their reputations, and in some cases, their lives to create a country where they could live free, free from over taxation, and they developed that declaration of independence, and they also wrote that constitution in that bill of rights to protect themselves from what they saw as the intrusion of this government, and in this case, great britain and king george, and for 200-plus years now, we have been the greatest country on the face of the earth. we freed more people, done more things, and we're not perfect. we're never going to be perfect, but from the standpoint of the rest of the world, people have

looked to us historically and said, america, there's something really special about it and its people, and i will suggest its because we've been free, and for some years now, we've seen washington, d.c. growing bigger and bigger and having more influence back in the states because when our founding fathers wrote the constitution, they were clear they wanted the federal government to do a few things, and do those few things really well like the military, secure our borders -- that would be a good thing if they'd secure our borders. i mean, i'd like the government to be doing things they're supposed to be doing and get out of things they are not to be doing. our founding fathers had a vision about what they wanted to see put in place, and when they got down to that bill of rights, and they had these big long discussions, and it took years

to get this worked out, and it was talked about the power is not delegated to the united states, by the constitution, nor prohitted to it by the states are reserved for the states respectively or to the people. that is so simple. ..

>> the 13th largest economy in the world, if it were a stand-alone entity for the last 11 years. and the reason i give you all of that background is to take you to today, and i think america and our country is really in trouble. and i can diagram part of that trouble, and a major part of the trouble on a map. it's a straight line between washington, d.c. and wall street. the corrupt, and i will suggest even fraudulent activities, that have gone on between washington and wall street has put america's future in jeopardy. $15 trillion worth of national debt is facing this country. 13 plus million people are out of work.

one in eight americans are on food stamps. we are at a juncture where we have to make a decision about what we are going to do it as a country. and i will suggest from my perspective that we have to have an outsider come in to washington, d.c. as the next president of the united states. and i respect everyone of those men and women that are running for the presidency. anyone that will put themselves through this process that we have in this country to run for, frankly, for any office. those of you, counter supervisors, engaged in the school board or state representatives, or what have you, thank you for your services. it's what makes our country really unique in the sense that i'm sitting here in front of you, talking to you, and this process we go through, i greatly respect those men and women.

but i'm the only one that's a national outsider, that has fought washington for decade now from back in my home state. whether it is trying to keep epa out of our business from the standpoint of the regulation of our environmental laws, or whether it's education. washington wants to come in and tells how to educate our children. i don't even know why we have a department of education, i'll built real honest with you, at the federal level. they should be iowans and your governor and your legislation and your local school boards making decisions about your children's futures, not some bureaucrat in washington, d.c. that takes the money to washington, they skim off part of the for purposes of administration, and then they pick winners and losers. as a matter fact even the states are pure in this. local school boards are not given, from my perspective, enough of the opportunity to make the decisions about how our

children are educated. and it goes on and on, whether it's the energy department or the department of commerce. but our government has grown so big, and it's so cumbersome, and it's so removed from our people. i've laid out three policies that deal with the economy, because the economy is frankly the biggest issue, that most people in your, edward taub a show of hands, and -- if we were to have a show of hands, right instincts are where america finds itself economically is one of the most important, if not the number one concern that you have. maybe not necessary for yourself, but for your children, for you, young man. when the social security program that is in place today, if we do not change it will not be there when you get ready to retire. that's a fact. we need to stand up, address it.

those of us that are either approaching the age of being eligible for social security, or there may be some of you and your that are on social security. it's going to be there for you. don't let anybody try to use fear tactics and tell you that trying to fix this system for this young man's generation, somehow or another is going to kill it for you and for me. it's not. but we do need to have that open and honest discussion about how do we transform this system, how do we make sure medicaid is going to be here to give the health care to the poor in our states. i think, you block grant back to the state. i trust terry branstad and his legislator to run medicaid better than washington, d.c. one size doesn't fit all. our states are different, but allow those states, the flexibility to do that. this issue of getting america

back to work, and how are we going to do that, the first plan that either that was on the energy site. and i'm kind of in all of the above energy, mean, i believe that, you do, whether you're in the alternative energy site or whether you are more tradition traditional, oil and gas or whether you're in the solar or wind or nuclear energy, i happen to believe that you can use nuclear energy safely. you can deal with the rods and reprocess dash that reprocess them a safety. look, if france can get 80% of their energy from nuclear energy, and they deal with the processing and the waste that is left over, surely america can. i mean, i'm not going to give up, i'm not going to give that

up to the french that easy if only they can do that. we can. we need to be smart about and we need to be wise about it. absolutely. but i think take any of those legitimate energy sources off on the table is not good policy. but i don't think washington, d.c. needs to be picking winners and losers. i would remove all of those tax credits, all of them, phase them out at the same time. whether you're in the ethanol business, and another probably some corn farmers in here who are in the ethanol business. or whether you're in the oil and gas business, face those out at the same time to treat everyone the same. wind, solar, whatever it may be. the federal government doesn't need to be in the business of picking winners and losers in the energy industry. that if the states want to have, we have an incentive program in our state for alternative energy. and the wind industry came in and use that. i have no problems with states

competing against each other. i think, actually i think that's what our founding fathers been forced to do was to have those types of competitions between the states. and if you want to live in a state that has high taxes and a heavy regulatory burden and, you know, a crushing debt, you can move to california. or if you want to live in a state that has more sensible taxation's and regulations and what have you, or they have, i mean, that's the beauty of the way our founding fathers saw this country, is that we are not all a lie. obviously, there are standards of living that we expect and that our federal government will be engaged in, and i respect that and i support that. but they have become so overpowering with their regulations and their taxation. and that's a reason that, when i talk about taxes, i believe that if we would go to a flat tax in

this country, 20% flat tax, have a deduction for your mortgage interest, have a deduction for charitable come have a deduction for your local taxes, have a deduction for social security benefits, do away with a capital gains tax, to a way with the dividends tax, and then take 20% of that, put it on a postcard and mail it in. i think we spent some $400 billion a year, thereabouts, in preparation of taxes today. lawyers and, i mean, tens of thousands of pages of the irs. so the point is, having a simple tax system, cutting spending, i understand how it cuts spending. i'm the only governor since world war ii, in texas, that is cut general revenue spending.

i've done it three times. i did it in '03 when our economy turned down. we cut total spending in texas this last session in legislature. and your choices. you can look at people's backgrounds. i mean, to judge people and find out what they are going to do, look at their background, look at the record. it's one of the reasons when i talk about, i respect the men and women on the stage with me, but we've got congressional insiders. we've got wall street, structurally, insider in mitt romney. he may not have a wall street address the main capital is basically wall street. and newt is a former speaker of the house. i talk about who is going to make the hard decisions about cutting the budget, has the record of doing that.

i mean, when mitt was the governor of massachusetts, he could cut the budget as we did in texas because we were the government at the same time. this is '03, i believe, '02, '03 period of time. but he looked for ways to raise the corporate tax rate. and they raise $400 million through those corporate taxes. they raise taxes by 20%. the same time, we cannot. we made our decision. got criticized by a lot of folks. goes with the territory. we cut $10 billion balance our budget without raising taxes. while newt was the speaker we spent, our spending and budget went up every year. i mean, even "forbes" magazine called new doubt on this and said hey, look, you know, you guys took money out of the social security trust fund to help balance the budget. you wonder, when people talk about the social security system is going to go bust, we've been

told all these years there's a social security trust fund? know there's not. there is a trust fund. it just doesn't have anything in it. because congress has used it and that's the reason we've got to transform it, transform the program to our young people that are either just going into the workforce, or are in the workforce now, but that it won't be there for them. and we know that. we've got to have an outsider. and i will suggest, that's why i'm here to ask you, to allow me to be that outsider. i understand how to get those budgets. i understand how, that the worst thing that you can do during a time of turned down in a recession, or a depression, is to raise taxes on job creators. we need to cut our taxes. the regulatory climate is

strangling job creators. i don't coming of you in your our small business men and women. how many of you in your our farmers? i started asking of you here are involved in agriculture and anybody is going to raise the hand that because everybody eats. give you a good example of this regulatory burden, is, i grew up driving john deere tractors. matter of fact, the labor department, get this, the labor department as a rule that they are considering that you have to be 18 years old before you can drive a piece of farm equipment. now, that's, i was driving went i could see underneath -- yeah. [laughter] i mean, dwight david eisenhower had a really good quote one time when he was talking about foreign policy. and he said you know, farming is pretty easy when you're plot is

a pencil and your 1500 miles away from the farm. and sometimes that's not, sometimes to all of the times that is a problem in washington. we have bureaucrats that don't understand what's going on in the states, whether it's environmental laws come a whether it's agriculture, whether it's the banking business. do y'all have a small community bank here in decorah? i will promise you if you go after that banker what the dodd-frank banking regulation is costing that bank, you will hear an earful. and it's not protecting one businessman or woman. it's not helping one consumer. it's costing money. u.s. a a, i know there are veterans in here, and you'll probably by your home insurance or you got something insured by

usaa, if you been in a military most likely. that company is a really big major employer in san antonio, texas. i just know this company because they are a hometown, or hosting company. the dodd-frank banking regulations are going to take almost $500 million in cost to that company to comply, in compliance costs. that is as much money as they send out in rewards and dividends every year, wiped that out. and i'm telling you, not going to make one iota of difference in what happened between washington, d.c. and wall street. i mean, this $700 billion of part money that they bailed wall street out with, they took over companies that were too big to fail. i mean, i almost spun through

the ceiling when i saw that. but that was nothing compared to what we found out about a month ago. $7.7 trillion transferred from our treasury through the fed, fed directed, to these wall street firms. $7.7 trillion. that's on your back. that's on these young people's backs. these banks were making money at this buried. there were $13 billion worth of profit made. hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonuses going out. and main street paid for it. that is, that is unjust, it's not right, and it's got to stop. we've got to the president that will walk in there that doesn't have these relationships, that is ready to clean that place up.

and to throw down the gauntlet and say, if you send a bill to my desk that's got the marks on it, that high price, utopian will come out. a sharpie will veto every piece of legislation. i mean, if it's got your -- if it's got an air mark on it it's going to be vetoed if you're spending more money than we've got, i will suggest to you there are two ways to really help clean up washington, d.c. and put americans back in control of our government. one is to pass a balanced budget amendment to the united states constitution. i will travel this country promoting it, how passing it in going to the states so that washington, future generations of congressmen and women, cannot spend more money than what we have coming in. the second one is to make congress a part-time body. you heard that right. a part-time congress.

let them cut their salaries substantially, let them spend a substantial more amount of time back home, cut their staffs substantially. and we can do that with a constitutional amendment as well. and there are people who say you can't do that. congress is not going, congress is not going to cut their own pay. congress isn't -- you can do witwith a constitutional amendmt if the people of this country get ready to take this country back, they can do it. they may be summoned in the says you've got to have been in town to do the business of the country. okay. that's good. you know how often the legislature in texas meets? for 140 days every other year. and 13th largest economy in the world. they need for 140 days every other year. they come into town, they get

their work done, they make their $600 a month, and then they go home and do the real job and live with their citizens. and they listen and they live under the laws of which they pass. [applause] those who think -- so, i want to wrap up with us and opened up for some questions and do more listening than talking for a little bit. i want to share something with you. this is never my purpose to be the president of the united states. i've got a great job being the governor of texas. i love it. our country is in trouble. my father, who left home as an 18 year-old boy in 1943, and was a tail gunner on b-17s in 1944, 35 nations over not a hill

germany, taught me all that serving my country and serving my state was really important. and when your country needs you, you need to stand up to the challenge and be called and be ready. i thought my service to my country was done when i finish my tour with the united states air force. is in my purse to serve my state for 25 plus years. but our country is in trouble. this isn't about me. this is about you. it's about that young man right there. it's about his future, and about what our country is going to look like in another four years if we don't get a handle on the spending. i've asked to crowds today, are you better off today than you were $4 trillion ago?

i don't think so. and so, having some thoughtful individuals, but in particular, a principled, disciplined, fiscal conservative as your president is one of the ways to do that. i offer myself to you in that role. and here's a pack i will make with you. it you will have my back on the third of january when you go to caucus, i will have your back in washington, d.c. for the next four years. god bless you. thank you. [applause] >> so let's open it up for some questions, please. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> there's nothing i've ever seen that is too big to fail.

if you're too big to fail, you are too big. so, you know, i don't understand the concept of whether it's a business, i don't think there's a country, i mean, i'm not for bailouts of businesses. i'm not for bailouts of european banks. the european, somebody will ask about, european situation needs to be dealt with by the european union. they've got the same problem we've got. they spend money, they printed money, today, they allowed themselves to say yes when they should have been saying no to new spending. we are finding ourselves on the same track those. $15 trillion of national debt that has to be paid off.

yes, sir. >> when politicians come to washington -- will you be the candidate that will bring common sense back to washington? >> has anybody walking in told you know? serious. here's where i'm going to use, i mean, i that every person that is walk in here and stepped foot in decorah and is asked that question there was an absolute, i'm going to be the one. i'm going to be the one. but i'm going to tell you, i'm going to take to look at my record. i helped create a climate in the state of texas that's created more jobs than any other state in this nation, and we did it with some pretty simple principles. you keep a tax burden on the job creators as light as it can be still deliver the services that people require. you have a regulatory climate that is fair, yet predictable.

one of the greatest cause that we have in this country today are regulations. a lot of people you never see them because they are embedded. there's some company, i mean, i didn't get around to tell you about the john deere and the new engine, the federal government has new emission standards on this new engine the john deere is building. and it's on the nitrogen oxide level. and i will tell you that i understand about environmental protections. i'm going to take a quick story about texas and is said and how epa has come and try to take over what we're doing in our state, and we cleaned up our air more than any other state in the nation. that the cost to the tractor is going to be $20,000 a copy. you will have to pay that. and i will suggest to you that the air, i mean, the difference in the quality of the air that

that trash is going to make is going to be minuscule at best. and people of iowa know better how to keep their air cleaned, and make sure their water is clear and drinkable, than some bureaucrat in washington, d.c. and so, these regulations, whether they're banking regulations or they are environmental regulations, they are strangling this country. i will pull every regulation that has gone forward since '08 and test it for the simple fact. doesn't kill jobs or does it create jobs? if it kills jobs, we're going to get rid of them. we have that ability in our states to protect our environment. and we, as i should with you can we cleaned up our air more than any other state in the nation. nitrogen oxide levels were down by 50% in a decade we just

finished. it's our people, it's our air. i mean, why would we, why would we spoil that? with the sensibilities in the state. in the back, you had your hand up. >> on the oil pipeline from canada down to texas or exporting gas and oil versus exporting through british columbia, seattle, what are your pros and cons of that pipeline proposal? >> i've had some pretty lengthy conversations with both the canadians and the governors that represent the states where that pipeline will go, not all of them but some pretty lengthy conversations. i had been a proponent of that pipeline. energy independence should be a call for this country. that's the reason when i talked

about i'm and all of the above energy person, i don't think we ought to shut out any type of legitimate energy source. i'm not for giving those tax credits, but i am for developing them and removing the regulatory hurdles. and what we got today, that oil is going to go one of two directions. it's either going to go west and the chinese will buy it, or it will go south for the united states consumption. every barrel of oil that goes south is one barrel of oil that we would not have to import from foreign countries. and in some cases, foreign countries that are hostile to this country. i mean, i look forward to the day when we can tell mr. hugo chavez no, thank you. , we don't need any venezuelan oil. none. [applause]

that pipeline creates a lot of jobs, and i'm talking about in the development of the pipeline. i'm talking about in the building of a pipeline. and i don't agree that the president should veto this bill. he should let this pipeline occur, and i know he is being pressured by those on the radical environmental side of the aisle that want him to not build this pipeline. this pipeline has been studied for at least three years. the information that i have on it, i'm not going to sit and tell you i am an absent expert, but the information i have on is it's one of the safest pipelines, if not the safest pipeline, ever built it in their armory pipelines that go across the opa-locka aquifer in nebraska which is the bone of contention they're making. said this pipeline needs to be built. we need to be looking for every source of energy. i want to wrap up one more thing

about energy and then i'm coming to you. the federal lines and waters that we have hands off right now for exploration should be opened up. only 8% of the proven reserves on our federal lands and waters, and understand there are places in our federal parks and places, we're not going to be exploited were not going into the everglades. without going into yellowstone. but we have millions of acres of federal lands with proven reserves on them that need to be opened up so that we can safely produce those resources. and i would choose a substantial amount, if not all that revenue coming into the federal government to help pay down the debt. yes, sir th. [inaudible] >> i don't think you will see a big change, we be my instinct,

until we get more infrastructure built. here's what i think occurs when that pipeline is built. because then there's confidence and people will feel substantially more secure than the supply of oil, in this case, is going to have come is going to be coming. we have found sources of energy that we had no idea we had 10 years ago. i mean, i'm sure all of us have heard the stories a decade ago that we have found all of the petroleum products that there are. they have all been found. we may be able to improve some secondary, tertiary recovery ways to get a little more out, but we found it all. and then we find these huge natural gas deposits that people didn't know were there.

frankly, we don't know what's under iowa. the technology hadn't been developed yet, maybe, that iowa may be sitting on huge reserves of gas or oil, that people haven't found yet. so my point is, the way to drive those prices down, and for american citizens that are on fixed income, i think what is most important things that we can do as a country is to expand our energy exploration and/or energy industry, whether it is corn-based ethanol or whether it's with gas or whether it's with solar or wind, because once you get that huge amount of energy, you can drive down the cost of that energy, which gasoline, electricity, the

manufacturing costs. the costs of living can go down in this country if we will apply our energy resources that we have. we have 300 years worth of energy in this country. yes, ma'am. one more question. your it. >> talk about such a huge gas deposit, it's been proven that technology to distract -- extract the energy would harm groundwater. >> no, ma'am. you cannot show me one place where there is a proven, not one, where there is a proven pollution of groundwater i hydraulic fracturing. [inaudible] >> bring me the paper. bring me the paper. show me the paper. i'm just telling you there i mean, this whole, i am truly

offended that the american public would be hoodwinked by stories that do not scientifically holed up. if that was true it would be on the front page of every newspaper. it would be on abc, nbc, cds, vioxx news. everybody would be running that story. we have been using hydraulic fracturing in my home state for years here and this is a fear tactic that the left is using an environmental community is using that absolutely, excuse the pun, but does not hold water. [inaudible] bring me to evidence and once we do that, you show it to me and i would be the first to say you've got a point. last question. >> thank you for your time. it's been really interesting. i appreciate -- [inaudible] first of all, what do you think

about states' rights are state that was reform immigration. particularly in arizona right now. and sadly, what your plan would be in reforming immigration? >> that question. because it goes back to the federal responsibility secure the border. i want to talk about how in danger our country is because we have failed to secure the border with mexico. mexico is our number one trading partner in america. we have, we've got a very close relationship with them, but that country is also overrun in places by drug cartels that have operational control in places along the border. we know for a fact that hamas, hezbollah are operating in

mexico. less than two months ago we discovered that an iranian effort to work with the cartel to penetrate through our southern border to kill a diplomat on united states soil, and that plan was found out and was stopped. you have venezuela that has the largest embassy, iranian embassy in the world in caracas. you have bolivia which is a marxist state, and the point of all that is that i think it's time for us to have a new monroe doctrine approach to the western hemisphere. the monroe doctrine, 1820s or so, to protect the western hemisphere from outside influences that are trying to come in.

the same thing that we did in the 1960s with cuba. if you recall -- you won't recall. you were to live in. but my point is, we have some really dangerous neighbors, if you will. dangerous neighborhood. and securing the border is really important. and you secure that border with three very clear approaches. strategic fencing, boots on the ground. i'm talking a substantial increase of the boots on the ground and how they are deployed. and then aviation assets so that predator drone type of equipment where you can look down and know what's going on on that border, and truly have fast response teams to stop the activities. the illegal activities that are going on on the border. you can secure the border. so securing the border has to happen. i've been getting with this for 11 years. so i mean, it's really

frustrating for me as, i mean, we've gone through two administrations to ask for help and really securing this border. and steal the border with mexico is porous and it's very dangerous. now, the issue of, what i'm the president of the united states i'm not going to be suing states that have their sovereign righ rights. the reason with his promise today is because the federal government will not and has not secured the border. once you secure the border, and there's truly a secure border, and then applying the laws that we have on the books today, and when i talk about the laws that i have on the books today is if people are in this country illegally and they are stopped, then they need to be deported. and if that particular point in time, people who are here

illegally will start finding ways to make their way back home. because they're not going to put themselves in the position of being deported. so my -- all of these conversations that we have about illegal immigration are interesting, but they are actually just intellectual discussions. because into we have the border secured, you're not going to have that immigration policy in this country. listen, thank you all for coming out and being with us today. god bless you. [applause] i'll make a pact with you. like i shared with you. y'all have my back on the third of january and i'll have your back for you in washington, d.c. god bless you. thank you. [applause] ♪

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> gambling is a felony. >> we were in texas. >> gambling about $5000 is a class b. felony. if you take in the bet it would have been a felony. that's actually federal racketeering. you can take them out of the race, good luck.

>> i'm wondering why you're so against gays serving openly in the military. when they are dying for your rights? >> i'm not the first one to throw a stone. boy scouts who were sued, openly served gay scoutmasters, that again is one of those issues, i don't agree with. i don't agree that openly gays should be serving in the military. my position is, just like i told a guy yesterday, he said how would you feel -- i would feel the same way.

[inaudible] it's not good public policy. this president was forced to change that policy. i don't think it's good policy. i don't think the military think it's good policy. >> how are you? god bless you. appreciate you being here. >> thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> she did pretty good sitting there that long.

>> thank you very much sir. >> thank you for being here today. >> can we talk about affordable health care? >> the best thing we can do on health care issue is get the economy going. if you get competition, you can't buy in insurance across state lines, and you ought to be able to do that. we ought to be able to what insurance from oklahoma or from massachusetts. they've got these prohibitions, and again got a kind of gets to the whole issue of we've got to regulate, make it less competitive. there's a number of ways that we can get our health care costs down, and so that's one of them.

>> the reason i ask the question is, isn't everybody in congress, don't automatically get health insurance? >> i'm more worried about you that i am of the people congress. the issue of how we get competition out there, and you know, get regulation, i'll give you a good example. in 2003, we pass this really expensive toward reform -- toward reform. doctors and hospitals and nurses at home. if you've been wronged you should get your day in court. when we pass that, the insurance costs went down for the

institutions in texas. so there's some very clear, some clear evidence that keeping these lawsuits from proliferating, so states should be working on tort reform in each of their states. and it's also on access to health care. we've got over 20,000 doctors -- [inaudible] they get to keep more of their money. [inaudible conversations]

all of that together is part of the solution of you being able to afford health care. >> do you have any other kids your? >> i only have one, and he is not here. >> thank you all for coming. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> get over here by the american flag. >> thank you so much, great job. >> thank you all for coming out. >> thank you all for coming out. transforming [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> with the iowa caucuses and the new hampshire primary next month see spencer is the contenders looks back at 14 men who ran for president and lost but had a long lasting impact on american politics. here's our lineup for this week. >> also at 8 p.m. here on c-span2, actor hugh grant recent testimony before the british phone hacking investigation hearing. thursday night a testimony from actress sienna miller and friday author jk rowling and former "news of the world" editor called mcmullan. less than three weeks until the first in the nation new hampshire primary to january 10 and republican presidential

candidate newt gingrich gets the endorsement of state speaker of the house bill o'briant today. we'll have that live on c-span at 2 p.m. eastern. to a jon huntsman's daughters, liddy and mary and as was his wife mary kaye were in massachusetts monday. they talk about how twitter is being used in the has been presidential campaign. and they showed their john 2012 video parody of the herman cain campaign ad. posted by the "boston herald" and the university of massachusetts in lowell, this is an hour and five minutes. >> a special forum featuring the family a presidential candidate john huntsman. i am frank talty, the host of this forum. with our media partner, the "boston herald," this is the latest in a series of activities undertaken this year there in september we conducted the first poll of massachusetts voters on the u.s. senate race here in massachusetts, followed by the first debate of the democratic

candidates for senate on october 4. earlier this month we conducted our second poll on that race. we will continue to follow this important campaign, one that has caught considerable national attention. we also want to thank the university of mass lowell public affairs and public events for their support of this forum. and things were good friends, today's program is being webcast live over the umass website at, and the "boston herald" website at webmac "boston herald.com." and live chat will also be streaming. we are very pleased to have two of the top political reporters with us this afternoon. they will introduce our guests, and moderate the program. so please welcome hillary and katy jordan. [applause] >> thank you, frank. just want to remind people that on our live chat, we will be taking questions for our

distinguished panel. will also be taking questions from their twitter at john 2012 girls, which sort of kicks off and introduces the first point and how we're all here in atlanta remind you guys any odds, please ask questions. that's what we're here for. we want to hear from students. we want to get some insight from the family. so get a chance, lineup, the mic is right over there. and please come at us with your questions. the first thing want to do was introduce you guys. i was hoping you could introduce yourselves. just talk a little bit about, you know, not all families want to be involved in a campaign and want to be visible. talk a little bit and ended his yourselves and say what you want to be involved. >> i'm liddy has been and i'm the third daughter of the family. and i'm a recent graduate of the university of pennsylvania in

may. and i decided, i've never really been in politics. i mean, i've grown up in it but when i graduate this year in may the first time i kind of realized the mess our country is in right now, the unemployment, health care, taxes, i had to wake up and realize that's the reality. and i think more than ever i want to be involved in politics. so that's what i'm really excited to be on the campaign right now. i'm confident about my dad every truly to believe he's the best one for the job and that's why i jumped on right away, get my graduation, came straight on the campaign trail. i'm so excited about it. and also starting the social, the twitter, kind of reach out to the younger generation. i think social me as kind of the big new thing for this campaign election cycle. i'm really excited to be doing it with my sisters. >> i am mom.

not beautiful hotter add to your hoping to be appear. i apologize commission some in bed with the flu. so she wishes she could be here, but i'm happy to be with all of you, and to be the mom of these incredible girls who had so much fun on the campaign trail. you know, they can get very serious at times, a lot of times, and you sometimes need to have the opportunity to sit back and be a little bit lightheart lighthearted, which is what these girls add to our campaign. they add to our lives. they also are very serious about why they are involved in it, as liddy said. i think for the first time in my lifetime i've seen this next generation, up, as my husband says, they will be handed down, a country that's less good, less productive than the one we got. and i think for the first time

i've seen young people really get out there and get involved, and really be concerned about what's in store for the future. when i was back in high school, we weren't even concerned about our future because things seem to be in good hands, and all seem to be going well but it doesn't seem to be that way today. so we are all finding that everybody needs to get up and take a stand and get passionately involved in making this country to get -- a great country that was and can be. and it's. but it's been an honor to be on the campaign trail and i'm looking forward to getting to know these girls and what they've done. i think social media is obvious he the wave of the future, as we find it even, no, once we get some a sense that can go viral very quickly. as you're going to see in a few minutes, a figure that they did and a song they did that went viral within a few minutes. my husband laughs and says you

give a foreign policy speech and get five hits on youtube. and they do a youtube hit and it gets, 300,000 in a few days. so that's the way of the future. you all are a part of that. i think that my husband represents a lot of what is important to teach of you and what, you know, the direction this country is going, and looking for someone who has not only, you know, an executive background in government service like running a state, but somebody that understands business. and i think a very important aspect that we need to look at, especially with what we are experiencing right now in our world, is to have somebody that has an extensive background in foreign policy. that is something i think truly uniquely to jon that he does offer this campaign. and somebody that can unite this country, somebody that can bring republicans, independents and democrats.

when he ran for governor of utah, he was able to get so many things done there that brought the state together, brought it to number one in job creation, best managed state in the country, and he went on to win his reelection at 78% of the vote. and that to me is leadership in bringing people together. so i think that as you're looking around at candidates and the types of things you're looking for, i do think that someone is able to bring this country together is a huge important part of it. so thanks for having us here. >> i'm married and, tony six and i'm actually the oldest of the bunch. i had been in china the last few years performing as a pianist, and when i heard that my dad was going to get involved in this coming election i thought i can't not be a part of this experience. i was actually part of the last presidential election cycle, and it was company, one of the best expenses of my life. being over in china, seeing how

much our country is in need of somebody with real leadership, i thought, you know, my dad is the best person to take that role. so it's just been a great opportunity for my family, and also being with my sisters, we decided to do a twitter account in which i have not been exposed to twitter, living in china. so this was my first real introduction to it. and as you guys have all seen, it's really taken off, twitter has taken off during the presidential election especially. so it's really been a wonderful thing for us to do, and also it's been great because the three of us have different roles on the campaign, aside from the twitter account. my sister abby who's not here is helping out on the media side, and i'm helping out with finance, and liddy is helping out with this generation, young professis,